Cranes are a necessary and useful piece of equipment on most construction sites, but extreme caution must be taken when working with them, as any failure could be catastrophic or, at the very least, very costly.

When it comes to cordless power tools, you usually have to make a choice between two things: power and convenience. As technology advances, especially battery technology, the gap is beginning to shrink and smaller tools are becoming more powerful. One of the clear examples of that is Milwaukee Tool’s new M18 Fuel Hackzall, a one-handed reciprocating saw, which was first announced at the manufacturer’s New Product Symposium in June of this year.

Consistent documentation is one of the keys to running a successful and productive job site, but if you’re still using pen and paper, you’re falling behind. There are several web-based applications available to help you manage and organize your reports and photos in the cloud, including Raken, which has recently updated their web and mobile applications.

Just last week, another police chase ensued when a 29-year-old man stole a SkyTrak telehander, similar a Lull, in Central Texas. Travelling around 20 miles per hour, the man refused the stop when police officers attempted to pull him over.

After backup was called, officers were able to subdue him with a non-lethal projectile and pull him out of the machine. According to the Lorena Police Department, he was medically cleared, transported to the nearby county jail, and charged with two third degree felonies: theft of more than $30,000/under $150,000 and evading arrest while in a vehicle.

For contractors, the lesson is to secure your equipment, so you can save the police and yourself a lot of time.

The video below was shared by the Lorena Police Department on Facebook.

Falls on the jobsite is the leading cause of injuries and fatalities in construction. Keeping up with housekeeping on your site is a great way to reduce risks of falls, but other protections, like rebar caps should be installed when rebar is exposed. A young construction worker recently found out the hard way what happens when rebar is left exposed.

Completed in 1976, the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada held the record for the tallest freestanding structure in the world from 1975-2007, until it was supplanted by Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. At its highest point, the CN Tower, which is mainly used as a communications and observation tower, reaches 1,815.4 feet (533.33m). Last year, the tower underwent a $16 million renovation and Priestly Demolition shared a fascinating, in-depth video for how they took care of the demolition of the interior space and walls.

Cranes collapsing on-site are serious business, especially since many of them resulted in the loss of life. A recent crane collapse on a construction site in Alpharetta, GA was caught on camera after it caught fire, but luckily no one was injured.

There are a lot of different specialty construction contracting sectors within the industry and cruise ships are definitely one of them. There are plenty of unique challenges when dealing with a moving ship versus a static building. A recent accident highlighted the challenges when a crane collapsed on a cruise ship under renovations, injuring 8 people.

Demolitions by implosion can be fun to watch when they go right – or wrong – but nearby residents can be greatly affected by the high powered blasts and huge clouds of debris that follow. A few years ago, a botched demolition in England left dozens of nearby residents unable to return to their homes for several days. Last week, an obsolete Steel Basic Oxygen Plant in Weirton, West Virginia is leaving residents in a similar situation.

Traditional safety training for construction workers includes OSHA 10-hour or 30-hour courses, toolbox talks, and safety inspections. Those training techniques are all important and necessary, but construction workers are an extremely hands-on group of individuals and putting them in real life situations can be much more beneficial to them instead of classroom training.

When we think about historic buildings of ancient times that are still standing, we can stand in awe of the level of detail that was incorporated into designs without modern tools and technology. For a few decades, it seemed like we would never see that type of character in buildings again, but sports stadiums are becoming new modern wonders, pushing the limits of not only what’s capable from a construction standpoint, but also the budgets.

Construction superintendents may not like it when the building inspector comes on site and hands out red cards, but inspectors perform important tasks that make sure our buildings were constructed to code and are safe for the public.

At minimum, building inspectors typically require a high school diploma, but many states also require them to have additional certifications or licenses.

OSHA has long used the language in the OSH act to find and hold multiple employers accountable for the actions of another on construction job sites. For decades, OSHA would not only cite the employer whose employees were exposed to hazards, but would also cite the employer who was designated the “controlling employer” on-site, which is most often the general contractor.

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